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CONWIP based control of a lamp assembly production line

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Abstract

Efficient and effective production control systems are very important for manufacturing plants. CONWIP, one of these production control systems, has a high potential of becoming the best one available because it suits a variety of production environments and is easy to implement. In the following paper, we compare the single-loop and multi-loop CONWIP production control systems for an actual lamp assembly production line producing different kinds of products with discrete distribution processing time and demand. A model is formulated with respect to total cost and service level. A novel rule-based genetic algorithm (GA) approach is proposed for the multi-loop CONWIP system to find the optimum parameter setting. The results have shown that the single-loop CONWIP production control system is more efficient than the multi-loop system. It can greatly decrease the total cost and the WIP (Work-In-Process) with zero shortage probability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong

    W. H. Ip & K. L. Yung

  2. Faculty of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Box 135, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110004, P.R. China

    Min Huang, Dingwei Wang & Xingwei Wang

  3. Key Laboratory of Integrated Automation of Process Industry, (Northeastern University), Ministry of Education, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110004, P.R. China

    Min Huang

Authors
  1. W. H. Ip
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  2. Min Huang
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  3. K. L. Yung
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  4. Dingwei Wang
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  5. Xingwei Wang
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Correspondence to Min Huang.

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Ip, W.H., Huang, M., Yung, K.L. et al. CONWIP based control of a lamp assembly production line. J Intell Manuf 18, 261–271 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-007-0021-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-007-0021-0

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